THE premiere of Fox’s futuristic “Dark Angel” clobbered some stiff political competition in the Tuesday-night ratings war.

The show, created by “Titanic” director James Cameron, was watched by about 17.3 million viewers – handily beating CBS’ coverage of the first Presidential debate (about 13 million viewers) between Vice President Al Gore and GOP candidate George W. Bush, according to early Nielsen estimates.

Still, “Dark Angel” came in second behind ABC’s coverage of the debate – which will most likely turn out to be the lowest-rated presidential debate since 1960, with only 35 million eyeballs tuning in.

NBC’s coverage of the Yankees-A’s playoff game averaged 9 million viewers from 9 to 11 p.m.

“Anytime you have political programming – even the presidential debates – on however many networks airing it, the other networks will benefit,” said Marc Berman, MediaWeek Online’s TV analyst.

“It happens every time, and it made very good sense for Fox to debut ‘Dark Angel’ against the debate,” he said.

Although “Dark Angel” did not beat the networks’ combined debate ratings – which had a much wider distribution and aired live on three networks and across cable – the show’s solid ratings proved it served as a popular alternative to the night’s political coverage.

Those numbers were culled from Nielsen’s fast affiliate ratings, which offer a rough estimate of the night’s ratings based on some of the nation’s biggest TV markets.

“The tell-tale sign of [‘Dark Angel’s’] success is that the ratings got better in the second hour,” Berman said. “People who watched the first hour, stayed around for the second.”

“Fox promoted that show so unbelievably, so massively that it’s been everywhere, Berman said. “With that promotion comes the name James Cameron, and with James Cameron comes ‘Titanic,’ – the biggest box office moneymaker of all time.

“Just for that simple reason, even it had been a regular night of programming and it wasn’t the debates, it still would have done well,” he said.

In “Dark Angel” Alba’s Max is impervious to cold and heat. She’s super-strong, super-fast, super-smart and has enhanced senses.

By day, she works as a bike messenger, but at night, Max is a highly effective cat burglar/freedom fighter.

She spends much of her free time looking for other genetically enhanced individuals who, as children, escaped with her from the military lab where they were created.